And it's all your state of mind

Battlestar Galactica 4.03: "The Ties That Bind"

And, super-quick before we watch tonight's episode, my post for last week's! Hoo boy, that was one of the most depressing episode endings we've had on the show.

Man, after watching the development of the relationship of the Chief and Cally all throughout this show, it's a big fat drag to see what she has to go through in this episode. It's not enough that she has to fear that her husband's cheating on her--no, she has to find out that Galen is in fact a Cylon. Her whole part of this episode is just heart-breaking. Especially the ending, where Tory corners her in the viper tube--and then tricks her into giving up the baby before cold-bloodedly spacing her. Guh.

Well, we certainly know now that at least one of the Final Five has turned actively malevolent and psycho as a result of discovering what she is. I expect now that Galen's going to lose it when he finds out that Cally's dead, too. Tory may keep him in her clutches for a while, but I can't imagine there will be much humanity left in him after this. That'll be heartbreaking to watch, too. He's consistently been one of the most decent characters all throughout this series, and I hope he'll be able to keep it together at least enough for his son.

Tigh, I fully expect to short-circuit pretty soon now, and I will be real surprised if at the end we don't have him asking Adama to pop him one in the head.

But... man. Sam. I hope that one marriage destroyed by the naming of four of the Final Five will be all we get. I really, really hope that Sam winds up keeping his shit together, and that if Starbuck comes close to popping him one in the head, that she won't do it.

Meanwhile, what the hell else happened in this episode? Ah yes--Lee having an intriguing little encounter with Zarek, and then going grr at Roslin during the Quorum meeting. Hard to miss that blatant dig at RL events in there, too, with the reference to Roslin's draft of a law that would let her appoint tribunals that answer only to her.

Roslin's really been coming across as more and more of a hardass this season so far; I don't know what this means in terms of her final character arc, but I'm hoping they pull back on the hardassedness a touch before they finally bump her off. I'd like to like her a bit more again before the ending of this storyline.

And, of course, we have such intriguing doings going on with the Cylons, too--clear signs of dissent, the possibility of un-boxing the Threes, and eventually, actual attacking out of the range of a resurrection ship. To wit, day-em.

But mostly, this episode was all about the wrenchingness of how Cally went out.

Yeah, and another thing: what's with the sudden Return of the Cancer? I mean, I was no fan of it being cured by the Magic Cylon Baby Blood, but it doesn't feel exactly well-plotted to me to have the Magic Cylon Baby Blood cure just up and eventually backfire again. I'd think that if it sent it into remission the first time, Doc Cottle would be all over trying to figure out if he can narrow down what in the kid's blood did it and whether he can synthesize a new drug or something.

But even aside from all that, Roslin certainly seems to have gotten bitchier in general, and I'm definitely not liking this whole White Knight Lee vs. Black Knight Laura thing they're setting up.

Yeah. It was so out of left field, too. I mean, after all the work they went through to set up Galen and Cally as a couple to begin with, and after they finally seemed fairly stable as of last season, now it seems like the writers were all "OH CRAP RIGHT we made the Chief a Cylon dammit now what do we do with his wife and kid?" And then they scrambled and wrote in some hasty marital tension and, well, meh.